


things we lost to the flame

by mariephantomhive



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, JUST, no porn tho guys i'm sorry :(((, this touches many relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 08:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariephantomhive/pseuds/mariephantomhive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone once said that one of the notable things about fire is that it requires oxygen to burn - exactly like its enemy, life.  That is why life and fire are so often compared. The thing is, while it takes a certain amount of time for a fire to die out, a single moment is enough to end a life.<br/>A spark is all it takes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	things we lost to the flame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Noavital](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noavital/gifts).



> This is a long overdue birthday gift for [her](http://www.londontiss.tumblr.com), who also checked this out for me. No native speakers checked it tho, so any mistakes are mine and mine alone.  
> This is set after the events of 2.12, so it's not canon aligned in regards to season 3.   
> Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Someone once said that one of the notable things about fire is that it requires oxygen to burn - exactly like its enemy, life. That is why life and fire are so often compared. The thing is, while it takes a certain amount of time for a fire to die out, a single moment is enough to end a life.  
A spark is all it takes.

~*~

After the showdown at the warehouse, everything was relatively calm. Sure, the alpha pack was definitely a threat they shouldn't underestimate, but they had enough time to figure out how to defend themselves. There was always the unresolved matter of Gerard disappearing off the face of the Earth while they were otherwise occupied, but the old man had been in quite a state at the time, so Derek hoped he was dead. The thought still bothered him though; a low hum at the base of his skull that just wouldn't go away.

He’d started working on the old house to take his mind off things; he'd rebuilt some of the walls, fixed the floor in most rooms and removed the shattered glass from the windows. It was a far cry from the house he'd spent his childhood in, and it still looked like something straight out of a horror movie, but at least he could walk around without being afraid that the floor would collapse beneath his feet. 

It still did sometimes, when he got flashes of the people whose feet had touched it before him, but it had nothing to do with its solidity anymore.

Isaac would help him sometimes; they could work for hours in complete silence without it being uncomfortable. He had become even more quiet since Erica and Boyd had left town; after the death of his father, they'd been his only family, and Derek figured letting them go hadn't been an easy decision to make.

He started putting more effort in a particular room upstairs, covering the windows and getting rid of the splinters and the glass shards on the floor; a bed was a little too much to hope for at the moment, but he gathered some old blankets and a ratty mattress and put them in the middle of the room. Once he was able to replace the charred door, he shut it and never crossed the threshold again, unless Isaac allowed him. The boy needed shelter, something that he had complete control over, so Derek gave it to him.

Scott had made it perfectly clear he had no intention of joining his pack, but sometimes Isaac would bring him along to the house. The first time he entered, Derek saw his eyes widen in surprise; he greeted the boy politely before going back to work, a little pleased with himself. 

The next time, Stiles was with them. Of course, he was a bit more vocal about the changes, meaning his mouth dropped open in a ridiculous way before he said, “Well, this is new! Hadn't you pegged as an Extreme Makeover kind of guy, sourwolf.”

Derek rolled his eyes and snorted, probably louder than necessary, before hammering the last nail in.

One time, the kids showed up with furniture. Noticing his raised eyebrow, Isaac muttered, “Don't look at me, it's was Stiles' idea.” 

“You're welcome, by the way,” the kid in question said, holding a red floor lamp. “Isaac told me you fixed the wiring a few days ago, so I figured you might need one of these.”

Without waiting for him to answer, Stiles put the lamp in a corner while Scott and Isaac tried to push an old green sofa through the front door. 

“Everyone tried to find something, you know?” Stiles kept talking from behind the hideous carpet he was carrying. “We're still trying to figure out how to get a bed, but we'll get there eventually.”

Derek kept staring at the boys without moving; it was a miracle his mouth wasn't hanging open. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because we're in the twenty first century and people don't sleep and eat on the ground anymore, Derek,” Stiles replied, intent on finding a socket for the lamp. “Besides, Isaac said reading on the floor is, like, seriously uncomfortable. Come on, it's not a big deal, bring your ass over here and give us a hand.”

Derek blinked two times, still appalled, before moving towards the boy and showing him where the socket was.

~*~

One day, Jackson showed up at the house. The redhead, Lydia, was with him: apparently they hardly went anywhere without the other now. He hadn't seen Jackson since the night at the warehouse: he was part of his pack, but he'd been bossed around by psychopaths over the previous months, so Derek had decided to give him some space, sure that eventually the boy would come to him. Apparently, he was right.

When he opened the door, everything froze for a moment. Jackson looked at him for a split second before settling his gaze on Isaac, who stared back, expression unreadable. He might have not been himself at the time, but Jackson had killed his father; even though Isaac's father wasn't exactly running for Best Dad Award, he was the only family he had. 

Lydia squeezed Jackson's arm lightly and he took a step forward, his eyes never leaving Isaac's. There was something different in them, a sadness that hadn't been there before; in some way, it made them easier to read.

“I'm sorry.”

Isaac blinked, visibly surprised; then he slowly nodded.

Jackson finally lowered his gaze; his shoulders were slumped, like a huge weight had just been lifted off them. Silence stretched between them, all frozen in place, until Lydia came   
forward and spoke, raising an eyebrow.

“That carpet is a crime against home decor.”

In his defense, Isaac did try really hard not to laugh.

~*~

His uncle Peter dropped by for a visit two weeks later. Everyone was at the house; they were trying to figure out how to assemble the television everyone had bought for Isaac's birthday a few days earlier. The wolves sensed his presence as soon as he set foot on the property and, oddly, Lydia did too. Derek got up and opened the door and his uncle raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised. He eyed every person in the room before addressing him directly.

“Aw, this is adorable. You weren't kidding about the self-esteem deprived adolescents thing, were you?” 

Then he took a step forward, ready to cross the threshold, and everything went to hell. Lydia started shaking uncontrollably and Jackson shifted, standing between her and the older man; Isaac growled, eyes flashing and canines elongating, while Scott, who was getting better and better at controlling the shift, just positioned himself in front of Stiles protectively. Peter immediately stopped and slowly took a step backward, raising his hands. 

“You're not welcome here.” Derek meant it. His uncle had killed Laura, almost killed Lydia, and then terrified her into resurrecting him: he didn't want to overlook those things only because he was the last relative he had left. 

“I just want to-,” Peter started, but Derek cut him off abruptly.

“Help you, yeah. Save the ‘you're my nephew’ speech, I don't wanna hear it.”

“I see. But one day, Derek, you will seek my counsel again, and who knows if my door will still be open?” He cracked a smile, the charming, cruel smile Derek had grown to hate. 

“Well, I guess only time will tell, _Uncle_ ,” he replied, purposefully stressing the last word. “Now get out.”

After he'd shut the door behind him, he turned to face his pack, an ensemble of pale faces and, in some cases, extra facial hair.

“Well, that was intense.” Stiles was the first to break the silence. “Lydia, are you okay?”

Everyone turned their attention on the redhead; even without werewolf senses, everyone could notice how upset she was. Her chest was rising and falling in unison with the stuttering beats of her heart and she was still shaking lightly. He could tell she hated crying in front of other people, but her eyes were welling up with tears anyway while she desperately tried to breathe and regain the control Peter's sudden appearance had so mercilessly shattered. 

“I'm sorry.”

Lydia was so shocked to hear those words coming out of his mouth that she stopped breathing for a moment, widening her green eyes; then she slowly nodded, her gaze never leaving his. As a matter of fact, he was as surprised as she–and apparently every other teen in the room, judging from the way they had gone completely still at the words–was, but it had been an honest apology. After his uncle pulled the whole Jesus Christ act, he never once stopped to think about the bright-eyed girl who blew purple dust in his face; he didn’t know if he could really trust her, even knowing she’d been under Peter’s control at the time, and he had every intention to watch her closely, but an apology seemed the right thing to do. Not just for the girl, but for the others, too: she wasn’t the only one whose life had been ruined by his uncle. 

After that, Derek just moved towards Scott to help him with the cables and no one spoke about what happened again, but he knew something had shifted.

~*~

A month later, everything was still quiet. Too quiet. Apart from the sign they painted on the old door, there was no trace of the alpha pack, and it was starting to make him nervous. What if they were just waiting for him to let his guard down to strike? What if he wasn't strong enough to protect his pack? 

His pack.

Derek didn't remember the exact moment he started thinking of the bizarre group of adolescents lying around in his living room as ‘pack’. It had just been a natural step for him; they made him feel stronger, but it wasn't the only reason. The feeling that stirred in his chest when he looked at them throwing popcorn at each other on his couch reminded him of what he'd experience in those winter evenings years earlier, when he'd pretend to pout because Laura won every single game of chess and his parents would just smile warmly at him and encourage him to turn the tables.

( _He never did. He loved the way Laura's face lit up when she won too much to let go_.)

Scott hadn't been a part of the equation at first, but his attachment to the others had drawn him in anyway; he wasn't so hostile anymore. They all fit well together even if no one   
would ever have expected them to, like that thing about orange and blue Stiles and Lydia sometimes joked about. After all, they may have been different, but they had one thing in common: they were all looking for something they thought they were missing. Maybe, by fixing roofs and replacing charred floorboards, he was fixing the holes in his chest and sweeping the dust off his ribcage, too. 

He didn't want to put them in danger. He felt terribly inadequate and that made him see red, made him want to shift and run out in the woods and never come back. But after all, you can't run from yourself, can you?

“Derek.”

He flinched; he hadn't noticed Stiles approaching, and that was saying a lot about his current state. How long had the boy been sitting next to him on that porch?

“What?” Derek replied, maybe a bit more harshly than he'd intended to. 

“Are you alright, dude? You've been sitting out here without moving for, like, half an hour,” Stiles said, his brow slightly creased, like something was bothering him. The boy lowered his gaze and slowly put a hand on Derek's wrist; he hadn't realized he'd been grasping his knees so hard his knuckles were white as a sheet. He went still and Stiles had to interpret it as a bad sign, so he took his hand off immediately. “Okay, sorry, sorry, shouldn't have done that, boundaries and all that stuff. Just don't slam my head on a steering wheel again please?”

Derek scoffed, relaxing his posture. “Those were special circumstances.”

Stiles' mouth fell open in a ridiculous way. “I did it for the greater good!” he said, indignant. “Plus, you totally loved the blue and orange one, don't even lie.”

“That was the single most hideous piece of clothing I've ever seen in my life.”

Stiles burst out laughing, looking up at the sky. “Right? I don't even know why I have it, seriously, it's an abomination.”

The boy suddenly stood up, walking towards the front door, but he stopped after a few steps. “Sometimes orange and blue do fit together, though, don't they?” he whispered, before disappearing inside the house. 

~*~

“Tell me again why I had to get in my Jeep and drive all the way into town to buy pizza for a group of ravenous werewolves?”

“They refused to deliver it to my house.”

“Yeah, because you scared the delivery guy off the property,” Stiles retorted, snarky as usual. “Oh my god, did you pull, like, a Home Alone act to accomplish that?”

Derek rolled his eyes and scoffed, struggling to hold back a grin. “I don't need a video recorder to do that.”

“Was that a joke or a not-so-veiled threat?” Stiles was grinning, eyes on the dark road before them. 

“Could be both.”

“You know, I'm not scared of you anymore, sourwolf,” the boy said, and it was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't, because there was something in Stiles' eyes that hadn’t been there before. Derek chose to ignore it.

“I could still slam your head on the steering wheel.”

Stiles groaned. “No, please, don't do that. Who knew steering wheels were so-,” he stopped abruptly when he noticed Derek had gone completely still next to him. “Derek, what's wrong?”

“Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“Drive faster.”

~*~

There was one smell Derek could never forget, even if he wanted. A smell that was etched onto his senses and connected to an instantaneous, primitive reaction: panic.

The smell of ash.

It hit him suddenly and unexpectedly, like a punch in the gut. It was everywhere in the air around him and he could swear some was already landing on his skin, waking almost forgotten nightmares of his family members still as statues, falling to ashes as soon as he reached out for them.

Stiles had understood the circumstances were serious and he was driving as fast as he could on the dark road which led to the Hale house. As soon as they took the next turn, it was before their eyes. 

Flames. 

Sky-high, terrifyingly bright, they were there, twirling and twisting, blemishing the clear night sky like an infected wound, exactly where his home should have been.

“Oh god, oh my god,” Stiles chanted while he hit the accelerator, taking the last turn to the house. Derek could hear his heart rate speeding up, mixing with the crackling sounds of fire devouring wood that were getting closer and closer.

Behind the tree line that separated the street from the property, here it was. The Hale house, his _home_ , was on fire.

Again.

Derek froze. He couldn't hear nor feel anything anymore: there was only blood rushing in his ears, so loud he thought he was going to go deaf from that alone, and the soft landing of ash onto every inch of uncovered skin. He was scared it would accumulate in his throat and clog up his lungs until he couldn't breathe anymore, until all it was left of him was a pile of dust on charred floorboards.

A scream brought him back to earth, and suddenly everything was too hot, too bright, too loud. Still dazed, he watched a small figure run towards the burning house. Stiles.   
He snapped out of his trance and ran as fast as he could, grabbing the boy from behind before he launched himself among the roaring flames. 

“LET GO OF ME!” Stiles yelled, trying to get away from him. His eyes were dry, deep black holes lightened by flickers of flame and widened in panic. “They're still inside, aren't they? I have to get them, just LET GO OF ME!”

“Are you insane? That's suicide, Stiles!” Derek yelled back, trying to be heard over the noise of the house, his home, collapsing on itself. “I'll go in, you don't fucking move, okay?”

Stiles paused for a brief moment, his breathing still ragged, before nodding and moving away from him. Derek turned away from him and started running towards the house, the image of the golden sparks in Stiles' dark, wide pupils etched behind his eyelids.

~*~

“STILES!”

Stiles turned his head abruptly towards the source of the sound and he blinked several times, trying to get used to the dark after staring into the flames for so long. When he saw Scott running towards him, all the others either behind him or at his side, he felt so relieved his knees gave out, connecting harshly with the ground. 

“YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE, I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!” he yelled, the last word falling on the fabric of Scott's t-shirt. It smells of burning wood, he thought absent-mindedly while holding onto his best friend for dear life, registering his heartbeat

( _alive, alive, he's_ alive)

against his own chest.

Then he felt his own heart stop and sink inside his ribcage. 

“If you're all here, then-,” he turned towards the collapsing house, panic sinking on the bottom of his stomach once again. “Oh, no, no, NO!” His words went from a whisper to a desperate shout, and he was on his feet and running before he realized it. This time, he made it to the door, which hung from its hinges, partially covering the hell roaring inside the house. He crossed the threshold without thinking twice, and then it hit him. The heat. He tried to breathe, but it felt like smothering, so he just kept going, looking for Derek's familiar shape. 

He found him in what had once been the living room. Derek was standing in a corner, still as a statue, his eyes two bottomless pits of fear and absolute, petrifying shock. Stiles shouted his name to get his attention, but the other man didn't seem to hear him: he was just standing there, the flames getting closer and closer to him, watching his home burn to the ground.

~*~

Derek could swear he'd read something in a book once, something about fire being the most purifying of deaths. 

Maybe it was always supposed to end up like this, he thought. Maybe this was the way to atone for his faults; burn, like his entire family had burned because he’d trusted the wrong person. His eyes were blinded by the flames; he didn't know where he was exactly, or how he could get out. He didn't care. He couldn't hear any other heartbeat in the house, so his pack was either dead or not there: either way, he had nothing to lose anymore. 

So he waited for the fire to embrace him.

But, in the end, someone else did.

~*~

Stiles crossed the room and grabbed Derek by the shoulders, trying to get a response out of him. When he realized he wouldn't get one in time, he just slid his arm under Derek's and tried to get him to walk out of there. The other man took an automatic step, but it was like walking through molasses; Derek was heavy and not collaborating and the flames were already caressing Stiles' sides.

They reached the hall, but the flames were already everywhere and there was no other way out. 

Stiles held his breath and pushed both of them into the wall of raging fire.

~*~

When Derek opened his eyes, he was lying on his back, staring up to the night sky. Now that the fire was dying out, he could see the stars, sprinkled onto the darkness like freckles on milky skin. Suddenly, everything came rushing in, like a dam had burst open without any warning whatsoever. 

Stiles. Stiles had carried them both out of the house. He abruptly got into a sitting position, which probably wasn't a great idea because his head started spinning; he blinked several times, trying to bring things into focus, and got a glimpse of two people kneeling on the ground, bent over a body. Several other figures were standing beside them, all staring at whomever was on the ground.

He was up on his feet and limping towards the group before he realized it, and he could tell someone over there had noticed his presence, because they moved their gaze up from the body. Moving closer, he could see that Jackson and Isaac were the ones standing, while Lydia and Scott were crouched next to Stiles, who was lying unconscious, the color of his face resembling the ash that was slowly starting to land on his hoodie. Lydia was trying to hold back her tears, failing miserably, while Scott seemed to be frozen in place, his   
hands firmly placed on his best friend's shoulders, from where he'd probably tried to shake him awake. 

Derek fell to his knees next to Stiles, focusing on the boy's heartbeat, terrifyingly faint, but present. His eyes moved up and down the motionless body, taking in the bruised hands, the charred holes in his clothes, the burns on his cheekbones. His head began to spin again, mixing nightmares with reality, and suddenly Stiles was one more ashen statue in his dream, waiting to turn to dust and settle on Derek’s ribs, where he would never be able to sweep it off completely. He would become one more itch next to his heart, one more glitch in his lungs, one more knot to his stomach.

One more fire he was to blame for putting out, forever.

“The ambulance is on its way.” Derek barely recognized the voice as Scott's; it was low and hoarse and heartbreakingly hopeless. He suddenly realized he couldn't bear to watch the golden flicker die out in the boy's eyes, couldn't bear to witness the grief that would follow. He decided he would make something rise from the ashes, at least that one time.  
He encircled Stiles' wrist with his fingers and he gestured to Scott, Isaac and Jackson to do the same. Each of them quickly did as he wanted, holding onto different areas of Stiles' arms. “Try and take as much pain away from him as you can.”

Black fluid started flowing in the veins on their wrists; Derek watched the other boys flinch in pain, mirroring his own expression. It seemed like it would never stop, never lessen, even when Stiles shifted lightly and his eyelids flickered. The boy cracked his eyes open just a bit, and Derek felt relief flood over him, making him slightly dizzy. 

“Hey, buddy,” Scott whispered from his side, cracking a smile. 

“Oh god, you're such an asshole, you know that?” Lydia was really crying now, lips tight, looking a second away from slapping Stiles. “You scared me to death!”

“Glad to know you missed me,” the asshole in question murmured, voice hoarse and almost too low to hear. “Guys, can you stop holding my hands? You're embarrassing me.”

Derek snorted, drawing Stiles' attention. “You're alive.”

“So are you, apparently,” Derek replied, fixing his eyes on Stiles' slender wrist, unable to look him in the eye. “Certainly not thanks to me.”

“Please, Derek, don't start with the guilt trip, okay?” Stiles cut him off immediately, voice surprisingly resolute all of a sudden. “If I didn't want to come for you, I wouldn't have done it. But I did. It's on me. End of story.”

Derek finally brought himself to look him in the eye, and his heartbeat stuttered when he caught a glimpse of the dying flames in his barely visible pupils. “Thank you.”

For a split second, Stiles' slow heartbeat hitched, making Derek frantic and scared something else had happened, and then it began to speed up, scaring him even more. 

“Hey.”

The soft whisper brought Derek's gaze onto the boy's face once again; he was looking directly at him with something of a fond look, the gold melting in his eyes. “You're welcome.”

Derek heard the ambulance siren blaring in the distance, getting closer and closer to the tree line. The four werewolves didn't let go of Stiles' arms, even if the fluid rushing in their veins was getting clearer.

Watching his childhood home fall to ashes once again in a pale boy's eyes, Derek knew the dust wouldn't bury him alive after all.


End file.
